1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a message handling process and a message processing system, which may be used to deal with unsolicited and unapproved electronic messages.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic messaging, particularly the use of e-mail over the Internet, has been enthusiastically adopted by large numbers of people, who have taken advantage of the inherent efficiencies and convenience of electronic messaging. One unfortunate consequence of Internet e-mail, however, has been the proliferation of unsolicited and unwanted e-mail messages, often referred to as “spam”, which people receive. Various methods have been developed to restrict or prevent spam from reaching intended recipients. The methods have included both technical and legal measures which to date have met with mixed results. None have eliminated the problem of spam, nor prevented “spammers” from sending their messages and seeking to subvert the measures.
One of the technical measures includes applying a spam filter which processes an incoming message to determine whether it should forwarded to the recipient or not. The disadvantage associated with such filters is that inevitably useful messages for the recipient are inadvertently filtered and never received.
It is desired to provide a method and system which provides a useful alternative or which allows management of unsolicited messages without seeking to simply restrict or filter incoming messages.